Practices

Bahrain World Trade Center

25 January 2012

Asia

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The Bahrain World Trade Center (also called Bahrain WTC or BWTC) is a 240 m high twin tower building located in Manama, Bahrain. It is the first skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design.

The two towers are linked via three skybridges, each holding a 225kW wind turbine measuring 29 m in diameter. The sail-shaped buildings on either side are designed to funnel wind through the gap to provide accelerated wind passing through the turbines, significantly increasing their potential to generate electricity. In addition to the wind turbines, the BWTC incorporates several other features that are intended to reduce its potential carbon footprint, including a heat recovery system, windows that can be opened to allow for natural ventilation, grey-water recycling, solar photovoltaic (PV)-powered outdoor lighting, and shading on the external glass façade.

The wind turbines are expected to provide 11% to 15% of the towers' total power consumption, or approximately 1.1 to 1.3 GWh a year.

They are expected to operate 50% of the time on an average day. Integrating the wind turbines on the skyscraper presented several engineering challenges, illustrated in the linked videos.

Acronym of the case

BWTC

Lessons learnt

Integrating wind turbines of a significant size into a building presents a number of engineering challenges. In the case of the WTCB these were augmented by the nature of winds in the area as well as the public nature of the building.